“A cellar in the front house opens to the street, and peering down one sees a score of men and women half buried in piles of dirty rags and paper which they are sorting and packing for the mill,” explains America Revisited, published in 1882, about Rag-Picker’s Court.

“Lines in the yard are strung with them. . . . Some have been drawn through the wash-tub to get rid of the worst of the dirt, but for the most part they are hung up just as they are taken from the bags, and left for the rain to cleanse and the sun to bleach them.”